Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Enchantment of "Settled Science"

I received a comment (from Julian Braggins), asking why a simple demonstration disproving the consensus greenhouse effect was not perfomed long ago, by a student if not an "expert". My response grew too long to fit in a comment, and it is important enough to warrant its own posting here:

Good Morning, Julian,

We are in a time of scientific (and political) madness, when the supposedly authoritative "scientific consensus" has failed, because generations of scientists have been miseducated, but few can believe it, or acknowledge it. The next century will be filled with books on "why didn't they see that...?"

I took the time to find and read quickly through the paper by Klein you cited, and I confess I didn't find it all that simple (compared to the definitive simplicity--if one only takes the time to do it--of looking at the actual atmospheric temperatures of Venus and Earth, and noting that their ratio, at various pressures over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, is due only to their distances from the Sun), nor does it address the fundamental question of, "how is the atmosphere warmed"? (as the Venus/Earth comparison does). Klein's experiment shows that atmospheric absorption of IR EMITTED BY THE SURFACE does not further warm the atmosphere, but it gives the impression that no IR absorption in the atmosphere can warm the atmosphere, because it doesn't address atmospheric absorption of incident solar IR, which is an absorption of some 20% of the incident solar power. And everyone (including me) has been hesitant to state what seems to be obvious, to me, that it is apparently water vapor that is absorbing solar IR in the troposphere, and fundamentally heating the atmosphere, independently of heating of the surface. Not being a climate scientist or meteorologist, and thoroughly skeptical of every aspect of climate "science" because of the fundamental incompetence I have uncovered in it, I haven't wanted to rule out other modes of IR absorption of incident solar, but water vapor stands out--on Earth and Venus--so far alone. (This would explain why comparing the Earth temperatures with those in other planetary atmospheres does not give the same, definitive results, if other gases than water vapor are at least partially responsible for warming those other atmospheres.) You will note that Klein, for example, discusses water vapor separately and in general terms, AFTER his experiment, and not at all in the context of IR absorption of incident solar by water vapor as a warming mechanism of the atmosphere.

I don't mean to damn Klein's experiment with faint praise (we are all just a varied bunch of students--with the natural world our teacher--trying to solve a "homework problem"), it is just that there is an abundance of evidence, it appears to me, to disprove the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect, and most of it quite simple, at least to a scientist--and the "consensus" scientists, determinedly incompetent before all of it, refuse to see it. It is a matter of breaking the literal enchantment put upon people's minds by the built up "consensus" picture. It is easy to see that enchantment as an essentially religious belief in false dogma, but those enchanted will not listen to that explanation either. One could also liken it to the enchantment of sexual attraction, particularly the "bewitching beauty" power of women over men. I suggest a cartoon might help, of a group of men staring moronically at a beautiful woman--or rather, at her reflection in a mirror--and labelling the men "Climate Scientists", the mirror "greenhouse effect theory", and the reflected image "the consensus"; and off on the side--outside the window perhaps--the reality, that is seen in the mirror of false theory as a beautiful woman, is actually the real world: trees and grass and sky.

Frankly, knowing as I do that the Earth was deliberately re-formed, wholesale, to a great design, I know that all the bewitching beauty of the natural world is the result of prior design, and that is the "bucket of water in the face" that can snap everyone out of their haughty belief in their own knowledge to date.

2 comments:

I posted the following post on Bishop Hill and Tallbloke with no response from either.

They claim to be sceptical but still discuss radiative transfer as if it had a worthwhile effect on climate.

post below:-

I had a bad dream last night. I dreamt I was a born again 100% non sceptical warmist zealot tasked with preparing a presentation showing the effect of back radiation from CO2 on Global Warming.

I'd start with Trenberth's cartoon showing that energy flux at the surface of 390Wm^2 is some 40% greater than insolation of 240Wm^2, and that this is all simply explained by Back Radiation from CO2.

A quick look at the properties of CO2 would show an emissivity of 0.001 [for a presentation I'll call this 0.01] and, being a gas, emitted radiation [stick to Back Radiation] would be in all directions with perhaps at best 10% having any meaningful interaction with the surface.

I'd set up the model with 1m^2 of the surface radiating with a flux of 240Wm^2

To demonstrate the principle I'd initially assume emissivity of 1 - or better still represent CO2 as a perfect reflector with 100% of Back Radiation directed to the surface.

Obviously the reflector must be less than 1m^2 or I'd end up with 480Wm^2 so I'd have to resize it to represent the atmospheric concentration of CO2 of .039% which leaves me with a reflector size of 0.00039m^2.

This means a Back Radiation of 0.039% of 240Wm^2, that is 0.0936Wm^2.

Multiply that by emissivity of 0.01 and multiply by 10% to allow for the multi direction nature of the 'Back Radiation' and I end up with a total Back radiation of 0.0000936Wm^2 [0.000039%].

I am no more prepared to analyze your calculation properly, nor inclined to take the time to do so, than are Bishop Hill and Tallbloke, and I am man enough to stand up and tell you that, plainly and directly. (So after this response, I will take no further comments on it.) I am sorry. I see no need for making unphysical assumptions, in order to demonstrate the consensus numerically (albeit grossly) wrong, when I know the consensus is really THEORETICALLY wrong, on the most basic level. As a merely competent physicist, my central creed is "keep it simple", so I would just stop you at the beginning, where you wrote "...energy flux at the surface of 390Wm^2 is some 40% greater than insolation of 240Wm^2, and that this is all simply explained by Back Radiation from CO2."

You and I both know that the surface cannot be emitting 390 W/m^2, when the only input power, the mean insolation, is only 240 W/m^2, as I pointed out in "Runaway Global Warming is Scientific Hysteria". So your (consensus-mimicking) introductory statement is, you and I both know, a gross violation of the conservation of energy. The surface emission and backradiation claimed by the consensus is merely a fictitious free-energy dynamo, a useless loop of power of monstrous proportions, invented only to "delay" heat transfer to space, as a function of the level of CO2, and it should not be taken seriously. (It would have been better if you had calculated absolutely zero backradiation, not just something vanishingly small.) You and I both know that consensus defenders will not admit that there is no backradiation, from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer surface (because there is no 390W/m^2 "blackbody emission" from the surface in the first place); so why would they even bother looking at the calculation you have presented here, and to Bishop Hill and Tallbloke?

No, whatever errors of assumption or calculation there may be in your analysis, you are in the end trying too hard to be reasonable using the unreasonable assumptions of the consensus. I suggest a "Million Man March" on Washington, against pseudoscientific climate madness, by level-headed physicists, would be more appropriate.